These are MY views about education in New Zealand and sometimes further afield.
These views do not necessarily reflect the position of my employer.
At times I will comment on other issues wider than education.
I am exercising my right to speak as New Zealand is a democracy. I am a citizen, tax payer and a voter, therefore I have the right to voice my opinion, regardless of my profession.

Monday, 6 March 2017

Back to the Future: How has economic policy influenced the development of education policy and how the educational achievement of children in New Zealand primary schools is measured?

This is my final assignment for my Masters of Education paper, Education Policy. It traces the history of Standards in primary education and how we have come full circle from our original Standards based education, when compulsory education was established in New Zealand in the late 19th century, to the disestablishment of the Standards in the 1950s, through the development of a variety of assessment tools from the 1960s through into the 2000s and then the reintroduction of Standards in 2009.I wanted to know how much economic theory and policy played a part in the measurement of children's achievement.

The children in class at Makowhai School in 1909. Alexander Turnball Library.

Abstract

In some respects, it appears that the New
Zealand public education system has come full circle from 1885 when the public
education system was formally established: standards.

Until 1955, the only way a student progressed through
their primary years was by passing the standards set for their class – be it
either by a written and oral examination conducted by a visiting inspector or,
later, under the direction of the school’s head teacher.

Today’s modern student is confronted by the
National Standards, implemented in 2010.While today, moving onto the next year level is not barred by failing to
meet the standard, a label is attributed to the child declaring their level of
achievement.

So how did New Zealand’s education system go
“back to the future”?How did the system
come full circle on the implementation of standards, to their phasing out of
and back to implementing them again?How
has economic policy influenced how New Zealand primary school students are
assessed?

The purpose of this article is to outline the
road taken by policy setters towards National Standards and the role of
neoliberalism as the vehicle to achieve this.

“Every person whatever his able ability, whether be rich or
poor, whether he live in town or country, has a right as a citizen to a free
education, of the kind for which he is best fitted and to the fullest extent of
his power... That idea was deep in the public consciousness, deep in the public
aspirations, and deeper still after the war. When again, like after the
Depression, the country felt a sense of guilt for what they'd done for the
young. And nobody! nobody! nobody would challenge that.” – Clarence E. Beeby, Director of
Education 1940 – 1960
(NZIFF: The heART of the Matter, 2016).

Prior to 1984, New Zealand’s government
practiced a policy of full employment for the nation, believing that everyone
who was able to had the right to work and would have a job.Successive governments achieved full
employment, through work schemes and public service positions when times were
tough, for nearly forty years – the price being that the government had central
economic control (Someone Else’s Country, 2002).

As the famous Beeby quote alludes, the country
was deeply wounded by the Depression and the effects of World War II,
especially in regards to the children growing up in the 1930s and 1940s.For those who served in the armed forces
overseas, they came back to New Zealand expecting they would have a job that paid a fair
wage so they could support a wife and family.

The government set up a free public health
system, built state housing and provided opportunities for people to own their
own homes.The government had heavily invested
in infrastructure for a modern post war New Zealand to ensure a strong network
supplying electricity to the whole country.Roads were being sealed and the railways reached every city, major town,
industry and port.New Zealand was
considered a wealthy country with a high standard of living that recognised what
was needed for a modern society.

There was also the welfare state, established
late in the Depression years, to support citizens until they were able to go
back to work.

The First Labour government had already begun a
programme in the late 1930s to reinvent the education system guaranteeing
universal free primary and secondary education. “It was assumed that where ever people lived,
they would have access to a school offering the same range of opportunities as
any other school.”(Gordon, 1997).

Education policy was developed using best
practice, the latest pedagogy and research.Teachers were supported with a network of advisors across the syllabus
from within the Department of Education.The health and wellbeing of students was supported with school milk each
day.

Minimal educational success was measured by
achieving School Certificate at the end of fifth form (now Year 11).If you were capable you would achieve UE or
University Entrance at the end of sixth form (Year 12) and go to university, or
stay another year to do the Bursary exams at the end of seventh form (Year 13)
– although this was not commonplace until the towards the end of the 1980s and
early 1990s.To be the first in your
family to achieve a qualification at university was to be celebrated.

In 1980, New Zealand had slipped from being the
sixth wealthiest country per capita in 1965 to 19th place.Prompted by rising inflation and unemployment
impacting heavily on the economy, then Prime Minister, Robert Muldoon,
announced a wage and price freeze in June 1982 to attempt to control and
deflate both.

In 1984, the snap election called by Muldoon
set in motion the biggest economic and social upheaval in New Zealand’s history
since the welfare state was instituted by the First Labour government in the
1930s – and it was a Labour government doing it again.

Economic
Reform

Prior to the fourth Labour government being
elected in 1984, many people were unhappy with the very controlled nature of
the New Zealand economy and were looking elsewhere for answers.Ganesh Nana, a New Zealand economist, quotes
John Maynard Keynes in Rashbrooke (2013, p.55): “The ideas of economists and
political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are
more powerful than is commonly understood.Indeed the world is valued by little else.Practical men, who believe themselves to be
quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some
defunct economist.”

The New Zealand economy was in dire straits in
1984 with record unemployment and soaring double figured inflation resulting in
interest rates being well above 20%.It
had its roots in the economic theory of Keynes, which tried to explain how the
Depression happened.Post-World War II,
Keynesian economic theory was dominant.The ethos behind it is a theory of total spending in the economy called aggregate
demand, and its effects on output and inflation.One of its key tenets was full
employment.Spending on big projects
(Think Big) and controlling wages and prices (Muldoon’s wage and price freeze)
are also features of Keynesian economic theory (Blinder, 2008).

US President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990).

People began to look overseas for another
option to improve the economy.They
looked towards how Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain and Ronald Reagan in the
USA were dealing with similar issues in their economies. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were
heavily influenced by the writings and direct advice from economists following
the Chicago School of economics, in particular, Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek.

Friedman’s ideas on monetary policy, taxation,
privatisation and deregulation under the virtues of the free market are clearly
seen in the policy settings of Thatcher and Reagan (Wikipedia, Friedman).Hayek argued that socialism could not be
compromised with, that all forms of collectivism could only be maintained by a
central authority of some kind and that maintaining the rule of law should be
the only concern of the state.As Ball
(2003, p.38) quoted Morrell (1989), “Hayek is particularly concerned to argue
against the involvement of the Government in the life of the citizen.”This meant that the state had no business in
services such as health, education, or the provision of electricity, water and
waste for example.These should be in
the realm of private businesses (Wikipedia, Hayek).

Margaret Thatcher was part of a movement called
The New Right.Their thinking
encompassed the musings of Friedman and Hayek in having their roots in the laissez-faire
viewpoint, such as leaving things to take their own course without
interfering.Again, this means the
government should stay out of the free markets.It is all about the individual over the common good.This led into neoliberalism - where we sit
today - a modern politico-economic theory, with its roots in classical
liberalism from the 1800s, favouring free trade, privatisation, minimal or
reduced government expenditure on social services and minimal government
intervention with business.

The ideas of The New Right, in turn, also
influenced economists in New Zealand who had the ear of key Labour MPs leading
up to the 1984 election, such as Treasury Official Doug Andrew, who was
attached to the Leader of the Opposition’s office in mid 1983 (McKinnon, 2013).

Economic policies of The New Right, pushed by
sectors of the Treasury department, were put into practice by the new Minister
of Finance, Roger Douglas after that election.Government departments and services became State Owned Enterprises (SOE)
and restructured, many with the goal of privatising and selling off to the
private sector.This resulted in large
scale redundancies and loss of jobs for thousands of New Zealanders as former
government services were rationalised.

When Labour was voted out in 1990, the new
Minister of Finance, Ruth Richardson continued the programme of privatisation
and SOE sell offs.But those in Treasury
wanted The New Right doctrine taken further and New Zealand’s renowned welfare
system to be dismantled.In 1991,
Richardson announced the Mother of all Budgets in which benefits were slashed
across the board in order to encourage beneficiaries to compete for jobs and
sanctions were brought in for eligibility to benefits (Someone Else’s Country,
2002).

On top of the highest employment statistics
since the Great Depression, continued redundancies and job losses from SOE restructuring
and private companies responding to the times, depressed wage increases and
instability of work due to the Employment Contracts Act and the loss of power
by the trade unions, the cuts to benefits impacted local communities extremely
hard.Over $400,000 was no longer
flowing through the community of Porirua alone, resulting in less money spent
in local businesses resulting in further job losses and business closures (Someone
Else’s Country, 2002).

After the 1984 election, the Minister of
Education was Russell Marshall.He saw
that education needed rationalisation as the make-up of the Department of
Education was cumbersome, and, after watching reforms being conducted in other
government departments, decided the best course of action was to set up his own
review of education before it was initiated by other certain members of caucus
or pushed by Treasury officials so he could control its direction (Butterworth
& Butterworth, 1998).

Prime Minister, David Lange, was very concerned
at the possibility of an education review being taken over by people who may
steer education away from its role of public good.“Lange sent Annette Dixon to talk to John
Wilcox, Marshall’s executive assistant to make it clear that he did not want
people appointed who would ‘take a blow torch to education’.”(Butterworth & Butterworth, 1998, p.66).The man recommended by Wilcox to lead the
taskforce was Brian Picot.

Prior to the 1987 election, Marshal announced
to his colleagues that he was launching a review.Brian Picot, the head of the supermarket
chain Progressive Enterprises, insisted he would only lead the review if it was
not to be used as a vehicle to slash funding to the education sector.It was “only to identify costs, benefits and
possible efficiencies” (Butterworth & Butterworth, 1998, p.76).

After the election, David Lange appointed
himself as the Minister of Education.“Lange was concerned about an imminent Treasury attack on social
expenditure, and that he wanted to send a strong signal to the electorate of
his continuing commitment to social policy.”(Butterworth & Butterworth, 1998, p.68).

The Picot Report was released in April
1988.Some of its recommendations were
based on work from other committees and unpublished work by other teams.In August 1988, the document Tomorrow’s
Schools was released, which was essentially the Picot Report with a few
relatively minor amendments.The biggest
adjustment was the inclusion and emphasis of the Treaty of Waitangi, which was
anticipated by the Picot Taskforce.

An
Overview of Education Policy Reform in the 1980s and 1990s

Under Tomorrow’s Schools, the result of the
Picot Report in 1987, the centralised Department of Education was dismantled
and replaced by a small policy focused Ministry of Education (MOE).The NZQA (New Zealand Qualifications
Authority) was set up to monitor qualifications and assessment.Special Education services became another
standalone agency (Gordon, 1997).

Primary and secondary schools became
self-managing entities with parents and community members elected to a Board of
Trustees (BOT) for each school.BOTs and
schools would take over the functions previously undertaken by the local Board
of Education (Gordon,1997).Advisors
(formally part of the Department of Education) became part of the Advisory
Service usually managed by the nearest School of Education/Teachers’
College.

The Education Review Office (ERO) was
established to hold BOTs, schools, principals and teachers to account for the
financial performance and achievement success of the school in place of the
inspectors from the previous regional Boards of Education. This was in line with an international
preoccupation with reviewing schools under the New Public Management doctrine (Thrupp,
1997).

In 1995 the decile funding system was
introduced. The right of parents to
choose the schools their children would attend, under the theory of Public
Choice, implemented in 1991, lead to white flight from low socio-economic
schools, particularly combined with the perception by parents that decile level
could be a stigma and may mean the education provided at a low decile school
was not adequate (Thrupp, 1997).Ball
(2003, pp.32-33) quoted Lauder, et al (1999) discussing how choice was being
used by New Zealand parents who were financially mobile:“Students from high SES background have the
greatest opportunity to avoid working class schools, and most take it.”

The Curriculum Review conducted under the Lange
government went into full overdrive in the 1990s, starting with the Curriculum
Framework published in 1993 (Philips, 2000).Each year a new Curriculum document for a new learning area was released
in draft form, which was compiled without direct consultation with teachers and
academics concerned with the curriculum area under the concept of provider
capture.Each draft had to be commented
on and trialled in schools before being confirmed, published and gazetted.This meant each year one curriculum area
would be consulted on, while a second was gazetted with schools writing the
document into their policies and a third curriculum area was being implemented
into schools.

This really was the ignition of an assessment
led curriculum, with Learning Objectives becoming the driving force behind any
learning planned with an assessment to prove its effectiveness.This was how the government and the public
would assess children were learning and teachers were effective or not.But how was this different to previous eras?

A
History of Primary School Assessment up to the 1980s

In the school days prior to 1955, a student was
required to pass the standard set for their year level.The Education Act of 1877 established a
national system of curriculum and exam standards for all state primary
school.They were formulated in early
1878 and gazetted later that year in September.Originally this was assessed by an external inspector using an oral and
written examination once a year.Rote
learning was rife with the threat of the inspector’s visit looming.Competition between schools, and even
education boards, was rife.One Napier
school announced it would pay a bonus to teachers whose students produced
desirable exam results.The results of
the annual exams were published each year and it enabled the public and the
Department of Education to evaluate the performance of individual schools and
teachers (Lee, n.d.).Like today,
teachers of that time complained the syllabus was being narrowed as a result of
the standards set for each year level.

This evolved to a test administered by the head
teacher.However this process led to
accusations of gaming the system by teachers teaching to the test or assisting
students with their assessments – not unlike some of the arguments of today’s
era of National Standards or evidence of overseas jurisdictions using a
national testing regime.Consequently a
set written test was developed (Hill, n.d.).

Prior to the Second World War and after it, a
lot of research had been conducted into the science of how children learned and
how successful teachers taught.Beeby
put a lot of weight behind this and it influenced the pedagogical approach that
he encouraged through the various units in the Department of Education.

Post World War II, changes were made to how
teaching and learning was approached and assessed.Passing the standards to move up was
abolished in 1955.Norm based testing
was the focus with a five point scale.After
the 1962 Currie Commission Report, The New Zealand Council of Education
Research (NZCER) were engaged “to prepare and administer national standardised
tests in the form of ‘checkpoints of attainment’ in basic subjects” for certain
year groups (Lee, n.d., slide 63).In
1965, NZCER were tasked with the responsibility of designing assessments based
on norm based standardised testing for each year group, resulting in the PATs
(Progress Achievement Tests) for reading comprehension, reading vocabulary,
oral listening and mathematics being launched in 1969 (Hill, n.d.).PATs are still one of the assessment tools in
use today.

During the 1970s and 1980s, other advances were
made in the assessment of reading and writing.Marie Clay’s Running Record and the Six Year Net for the assessment of
reading behaviours and Donald Graves writing conferences to assess and feedback
on the craft of writing were established as core assessment procedures for
teachers and are still in use today (Hill, n.d.).

Assessment
in the 1990s Era of Reform

As part of the market focus of the reforms
initiated when Tomorrow’s Schools was implemented in 1989, schools and teachers
were to be held accountable for the learning achievement of students
publicly.“The insinuation was that
through these accountability measures, student achievement and the quality of
learning programmes would be improved.” (Hill, 2002).

In 1990, a document called Tomorrow’s Standards
was published as a result of the Ministerial Working Party on Assessment for
Better Learning.Following that, a wider
range of assessment tools were developed to assist classroom teachers with
formative (used to improve teaching and learning) and summative (a summary of
where the individual is at) assessments to ensure students were achieving the
tightly specified outcomes of the New Zealand Curriculum (Philips, 2000).

Teachers and schools developed their own
methods and resources to assess their students’ learning while the Ministry
worked on developing examples of assessment activities, co-ordinating teacher
development in assessment and releasing support material such as Assessment:
Policy to Practice in 1994 (Philips, 2000).Philips said Hill (1999) referred to ‘assessment frenzy’ becoming
epidemic in the 1990s primary school setting.

During this time, common place assessment tools
used included the School Entry Assessment, Six Year Nets, Standard Two Survey,
Running Records and PATs.During this
time the Assessment Resource Banks (ARBs) were developed by NZCER to provide a
variety of standardised assessment items in mathematics, English and science.

The National Education Monitoring Project
(NEMP) was established in the mid 1990s based at the University of Otago.“The stated purpose of NEMP is to provide a
national picture of trends in educational achievement, which may assist policy
development, resource allocation and review of the New Zealand
Curriculum.”(Philips, 2000).A sample of students in Years 4 and 8 (or
Standard 2 and Form 2) were selected to complete tasks in various curriculum
areas to demonstrate their skills and achievement in that curriculum area.

In the mid 1990s, international assessments
emerged to measure educational achievement in OECD countries.The Third International Mathematics and
Science Study (TIMSS) was one, and it enabled New Zealand students to be
compared to students in the other OECD countries.

In 1998 a Green Paper, Assessment for Success
in Primary Schools, was a beacon for what was to come.The Green Paper said there was a need to know
how children were achieving in primary schools and that schools needed better
information “to ‘benchmark’ or check their professional judgement” and compare
to nationwide cohorts (Philips, 2000, p.148).While acknowledging the range of assessment tools in operation already,
the Green Paper deliberately downplayed their importance and sophistication to
promote the need of national, externally referenced tests (Lee, n.d.).Recommendations included additional
diagnostic test to provide specific next steps for learners, along with the
mandatory externally, referenced tests with multiple choice questions to be
administered at Years 6 and 8 (Standard 4 and Form 2).

The external mandatory tests were opposed by
the teaching profession, citing fears of narrowing the curriculum, league table
and teaching to the test, not unlike the calls over a hundred years previous to
this (Lee, n.d.).Three proposals for
new diagnostic tools, exemplars of students’ work and changes to NEMP were
supported however (Philips, 2000).

This is the report in the NZEI Rourou (12/10/1999 volume 10, issue 10 1999) of then Education Minister Nick Smith's speech to the 1999 NZEI Annual Meeting - the first Annual Meeting I ever attended. The silent protest was powerful.

However, with in late 1998 it was clear the
government was still working towards external mandatory tests when it announced
a new goal for literacy and numeracy (Philips, 2000, p.144): “By 2005, every
child turning 9 will be able to read, write and do maths for success.” Lee (nd) said the new Education Minister in
1999, Dr Nick Smith, stated that an external mandatory test regime was still on
the table post-election, while Labour leader, Helen Clark, ruled it out under a
Labour government.

Assessment
in the 2000s

Upon Labour becoming the
government in November 1999, the proposal of a national external test regime
for primary schools was extinguished.Otherwise the new Labour led government carried on the majority of the
policy agenda set under the previous National led government.The 1998 Green Paper had some initiatives in
motion and the emphasis was on Literacy and Numeracy driven from the failed
attempt by the previous government to introduce a national testing regime.

Unlike the National led
government before it, this Labour led government during the 2000s actively
engaged the teaching profession in all initiatives, believing that if the teachers
had buy in they would more likely have successful student outcomes.“Accordingly, when students fail to achieve
the prototypical classroom teacher becomes the scapegoat…In this ideal, Labour is attempting
simultaneously to secure the active support of the teaching workforce as a
partner of the state and to persuade the wider electorate that it is the
watchdog of educational standards.”(O’Neill, 2005, p.119).

With the focus being on Literacy and Numeracy,
several key contracts were initiated in 2000.One was the Numeracy Project, a new way to assess children’s
capabilities to express their understanding of number and computation and how
to teach Numeracy, as maths came to be known.Contracts for writing and reading to improve a schools performance in
these areas under the Literacy Project were also initiated as well as clusters
of schools for ICTPD (Information and Communication Technologies Professional
Development).

The new Education Minister, Trevor Mallard,
announced the development of a new assessment tool called asTTle to be
developed by the University of Auckland under the guidance of Prof John
Hattie.This tool would be used on a
voluntary basis by schools, with assessments chosen by teachers to suit their
learning programmes and the varied nature of these assessment meant the
development of league tables would be highly unlikely.

Other new assessment tools, as a result of the
1988 Green Paper were developed too.Between 1999 and 2003, NZCER developed and trialled a new literacy
assessment tool call STAR for students Year 3 and up (NZCER, n.d.).The National Curriculum Exemplars were
examples of student work at each level of the curriculum identifying features
that were characteristic of the achievement expected at that level.Alongside matrices for writing, for example,
these enabled teachers to level a student’s writing sample against the
Curriculum expectations.

Assessments in use over the 2000s included:
School Entry Assessment, Six Year Nets, Numeracy diagnostic tools like NUMPA
and GloSS, National Curriculum Exemplars, Year Four Survey (aka Standard Two
Survey), Running Records, asTTle, ARBs, PATs, STAR and NEMP.

But rather than a focus on assessment to
improve student outcomes, the spotlight turned to how to identify best practice
in teaching and learning, how to better analyse and use the assessment data
collected to inform teaching and learning, and to place further responsibility
and accountability upon teachers to meet the needs of individual students (O’Neill,
2005).As O’Neill (p.119) wrote, “On the
surface, then, the discourse under the Fifth Labour Government has simply
shifted from ‘summative’ to ‘formative’ in its emphasis.”

The government also initiated a long-term study
conducted by Adrienne Alton-Lee called Iterative Programme of Best Evidence
Synthesis, focused on reviewing the best evidence of teaching and learning in
an effort to find out how to best improve teaching and learning to improve student
outcomes (Boyask, 2010 and O’Neill, 2010).

International tests of
student performance were an increasingly important sign post under the Labour
led government to prove the system was delivering.PIRLS (Progress in International Reading
Literacy Study) and PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment)
joined TIMSS as a way for the government to compare New Zealand student
performance internationally.In
comparison to New Zealand developed assessments, these international
assessments failed to factor in the cultural currency of the New Zealand
student, especially Māori and Pasifika students.This was due to the assessment being focussed
on the knowledge considered to be essential for the global knowledge economy.None the less, the reports from these
assessments remained central to the narrative of the MOE literature (Boyask, 2010).

Nationals
Rationale for National Standards

When National left office in 1999, it was with
a sense of unfinished business in regards to getting more accountability for
student achievement outcomes to be measured.The had not achieved their goal of a national testing regime.

John Key.

John Key, the National leader, signalled in
2007 that when National got into government, National Standards would be
central to his government’s plans in education and the focus would be on the
basics, Literacy and Numeracy.Lee
(n.d.) quoted from the National Party’s 2007 Education Policy, “National
Standards will give schools from Kaitaia to Bluff a set of shared expectations
about what students should be achieving as they move through primary
school.Teachers will use national
standards to clearly identify students who are at risk of missing out on basic
skills and becoming a permanent part of the “tail” of under-achievement.”Teachers argued this was disingenuous, as
they already knew which children were not meeting the expected stages for their
age and year level in various subjects.

Three key ideas underpinned this policy:
national standards, effective schoolwide assessment and upfront reporting to
parents.National based this policy on
two ERO reports, The Collection and use of Assessment Information in Schools
(March 2007) and The Collection and Use of Assessment Information: Good
Practice in Primary Schools (June 2007), which claimed 49% of schools were not
implementing effective schoolwide assessment, teachers were not using the huge
potential of the assessment tools for their programmes or efficiently reporting
to families (O’Neill, 2007).

However, National did back off from an external
mandatory testing regime in favour of teachers using the existing assessment
tools.Instead they would be making Overall
Teacher Judgements (OTJs) when comparing assessment results to National
Standards.

Anne Tolley, Minister of Education at the
NZEI 2011 Annual Meeting in Rotorua.
I was in attendance for this controversial
address to Annual Meeting as well.

After the election in November 2008, the new
Prime Minister, John Key, appointed Anne Tolley as Minister of Education.Within weeks, under urgency and avoiding the
select committee process, National Standards legislation was before the House
and passed by the National Party MPs and their Coalition Support Partners, Act,
United Future and the Māori Party.Tolley insisted that parents wanted National Standards, despite few
voters actually knowing that it was part of their election manifesto as both
National and Labour released their education policies one week before the
election.She told principals in
February 2009 that consultation would happen during that year and
implementation would be in 2010 (Lee, n.d.).

Tolley continued to use the previously mentioned
ERO reports to justify National Standards, using statistics in her speeches and
media briefings to prove her point, her favourite one being one in five
children were being failed as part of the long tail of underachievement.However a closer look at the data from the
ERO reports, according to Lee (n.d.), shows these reports did not actually bare
out what Minister Tolley was saying to justify the policy.She had cherry picked statistics to make her
case.

In
Conclusion

It is clear throughout the history of the
compulsory primary school era that what children learn and how it is proved has
been a consistent tension for politicians and the public.The politicians wanted justification that the
taxpayer dollars they had dedicated towards compulsory education were indeed
value for money.

Post-World War II, this did not change, but
pedagogy had more influence over assessment than economics when the need to
pass a standard each year was abolished in 1955.However, politicians still insisted on some
form of measurement of achievement resulting in new tools such as the normative
PATs, Running Records and so being developed over the next thirty years more in
line with how experts knew students learn.

With the advent of The New Right and the
evolution into neoliberalism, the drive for teachers to be accountable for
student outcomes has come “back to the future”.While a national testing regime similar to the UK, USA or Australia has
been kept at bay during the 2000s, National has implemented National
Standards.Now children are assessed
according to OTJs made by teachers using the assessment results collected
against the Standards.These are
collated, reported to the MOE and, through the work of the media, league tables
have emerged comparing the performance of schools against one another.

While economic policy does not specifically
drive the desire to know how students are performing, as that is definitely an
area parents and politicians have stake in knowing, economic policy does drive
the form that the accountability will take.Under the Fifth Labour led government the desire for education policy to
be seen as reminiscent of the Fraser/Beeby egalitarian era dampened down the
standards debate.But with the return of
a National led government under John Key, the neoliberalist desire to have
every dollar spent on social policy accounted for and justified has come to the
fore.

Boyask, R. (2010). Learning and Diversity in
Schools. In Thrupp, M., & Irwin, R. (Eds.). Another decade of New
Zealand education policy: Where to now? (pp. 21-34) Hamilton, N.Z.: Wilf
Malcolm Institute of Educational Research (WMIER), Faculty of Education, The University
of Waikato.

About Me

I have been teaching primary school children in the greater Waikato for over 22 years and I love cats, rugby, netball, reading, music and the beach. Currently I am half way through my Masters of Education in Global Education Policy. I got distracted by an election and I am now back full time teaching Y2/3s, and figuring out how to do my dissertation in 2018.